From JohnM - One Hundred Years of Big Guns (188 Points)

As usual, the start of the Annual Painting Challenge coincides with my busiest time of year. This year to be prepared I prepped everything I thought I would do during the contest prior to the start date. It is a big help, but unfortunately having everything prepped resulted in me having difficulty deciding what to start with it. So I started 5 projects at the same time! Here I present 4 of them, the 5th will be my COLD bonus entry. 

So here we have some 4 projects associated with big guns. Otherwise this submission is somewhat incoherent as it covers different countries and eras. I know photograph storage is at a premium so I have limited myself to one photo per entry, with one extra because I just could not resist.

I have not had time to comment on the individual entries so far, but there is some really superb stuff, this year's contest looks like it is off to a great start.

PSC 20 mm Pak40 AT Gun. This is a very nice kit, I will need it soon in my 29, Let's Go Chain of Command campaign.

Two Achilles mobile AT Gun's from Armourfast. Not a whole lot of detail, with with some stowage they look OK.

PSC Firefly, very nice model, I think I will have to tone down the rust a little.

French Napoleonic Caisson from Front Rank, this is a big model and was quite a lot of work as there is a lot of detail.

Could not resist a second photo, the whole thing was a bugger to assemble especially with the tracings.

A British Heavy Artillery Foot Battery, bit of a mixture here the cannon and one figure are from Front Rank, while the Howitzer and most of the figures are from Perry. That's it for British Napoleonic Artillery, that specific lead pile is done!

From Curt:Great work John and welcome to your 5th Challenge! Wow, that is a nice collection of guns and vehicles. First, congratulations on finishing your Napoleonic British artillery collection - I know how long you've been working on that project so it's an achievement in of itself. Also, congrats on preservering with the French caisson as I know how fiddly they can be to complete. I really like your Firefly. This is inspirational as I'm in the midst of assembling a few of the PSC Shermans myself and have been really impressed with their overall quality and ease of assembly. 

 
(Slipping on anorak) One thing about the British variants of the Sherman (including the Firefly): they usually didn't keep the .50 cal machine gun as many crews found them more of a hinderance than a help - it had to be fired from outside the turret, got caught up in low-hanging foliage and if the crew had to bail out it risked getting in the way (a glowing vote of confidence for the Sherman itself).  This being said I think it's fine to have a few within a unit, as there is photographic evidence that a few were used, but, by and large, they were absent on British Shermans. Sorry, couldn't help myself (anorak shrugged off). :)

Anyway, enough blather. Again, welcome aboard John - I look forward to seeing what you'll come up with over the coming months.